The Night Shift by Alex Finlay #BookReview #BlogTour @HoZ_Books

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Night Shift by Alex Finlay. A sincere big thank you to the publisher Head of Zeus for the invitation to read and review this novel that I enjoyed very much!  

What connects a massacre at a Blockbuster video store in 1999 with the murder of four teenagers fifteen years later?

It’s New Year’s Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.

In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre, who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the Night Shift Murders…

I really enjoyed Every Last Fear so I was thrilled with the chance to read Alex Finlay’s second novel The Night Shift. An added bonus for me was the setting of part of the story in the late 90’s, an era I love reading about. I confess I’m nostalgic like that. It’s been a long time but I vaguely remember that I visited the local video store quite a lot back then. I can still see the rows and rows of grey video cassettes behind the counter. I don’t quite remember the person manning the station but it could very well have been someone like Steve, the first person who was introduced in the novel. Following his interactions with his employees I was already going through a lot of emotions before the story had well and truly started.

If you enjoyed Finlay’s first novel you’ll certainly going to enjoy this one too. Just like in his first novel The Night Shift dives into the action right away. The term slowly easing in definitely isn’t in this author’s dictionary :-). I love this style of writing and I simply couldn’t protect myself from reeling! Right when you think you’ll get to know a character better and you start to feel an affinity he’ll kill them off! The lead up to murder was short and the shock value was high. I was dying to know WHY and WHO asap. 

The investigation was really compelling with the past history linked to the present with another serial killing 15 years later. I don’t know what the secret ingredient exactly was, whether it was the pace, the plot or something else but it had me hooked! I also loved there were so many different characters to intrigue me as a reader. There are two final girls, a suspect on the run for 15 years, the brother of the suspect who still believes he’s innocent and of course FBI agent and 8-month pregnant Sarah Keller assigned to work the case with Union County detective Atticus Singh. They are a wonderful duo even if it felt a bit of a strange combination at first, they really were great together. Several of these characters are looking for answers though, not only the FBI so with the race for solving these mysteries on, it made for very animated reading.   

With the different POV’s switching at high speed I didn’t have much time to think things through but I didn’t want to take a break from reading to start analysing everything that I read so it’s not so surprising that I missed the who and why entirely. Maybe the why could have been expanded a little more but the story had deaths, danger, secrets, lies… everything you need for a great book. All of this combined with a very skilled writer who loves to do things just a little differently, someone who doesn’t always take the beaten path in writing (he isn’t even on Twitter btw), makes this one well worth reading. 

I find Alex Finlay a bit of an understated author and I’m happy I was introduced to his work. I already can’t wait to read his next book!

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher Head of Zeus via Netgalley. This is as always my honest opinion.   

 

                 

One Step Too Far by Lisa Gardner (Frankie Elkin #2) #BookReview #BlogTour @centurybooksuk

I’m delighted to share my thoughts on the latest book by Lisa Gardner ‘One Step Too Far‘ featuring missing person tracker Frankie Elkin. My thanks to the publisher Penguin Random House’s imprint Century for the invite for the blog tour and the digital ecopy via Netgalley. A heads up already, you won’t fail noticing that I’m quite enthusiastic about this novel 😉

A young man disappears during a stag weekend in the woods. Years later, he’s still missing.

But his friends who were with him that day are still searching for him. Still hunting for answers.

They hike deep into the wilderness.

With them is missing person specialist Frankie Elkin.

What they don’t know is that they are putting their own lives in terrifying danger, and may not come back alive . . .

Lisa Gardner started her writing career aged seventeen. Having caught her hair on fire while working in food service, crafting a novel seemed a safer bet. A mere ten years later she became an overnight success with the publication of her first thriller, The Perfect Husband.

Now an internationally bestselling author and winner of the International Thriller Writers Award for best suspense novel, Lisa lives in the mountains of New Hampshire with her family.

When not glued to her computer, she can be found hiking the mountains with her dogs and/or researching new and interesting ways to get away with murder.

Follow Lisa Gardner on Twitter @LisaGardnerBks ; or visit her website: https://www.lisagardner.com/

One Step Too Far is such an amazing novel! To say that I loved it is an understatement, it’s phe-nom-in-al! I was already itching to share the book love only 10 minutes after I finished reading it, so I’m excited it’s finally review day.

This is the second novel in a series about Frankie Elkin, a woman – not a detective, not a professional – who tries to find missing persons. A new location and new characters in every novel in the series, it’s a wonderful idea because you can read them as standalones but the characters of the first book in the series (bar owner Stoney, his terrorizing cat (still love him) and the special detective) were so great that I wished she’d stayed in town. That was before I read this novel. By the end of it, I had exactly the same feelings all over again, so many of the characters captured my heart, not to mention the dog, a lab called Daisy who’s a cadaver dog but can also find people alive.

Frankie is on her way to investigate the disappearance of an 8 year old but decides to make a little detour and join a search party for Timothy O’Day who went missing 5 years earlier. The party consists of 8 people (and a dog): a grieving father, a hiking guide, three college friends and three semi-professional searchers. They set out to an area in the massive Popo Agie Wilderness Area that consists of woods, mountains, streams, lakes, gullies, cliff faces, wild animals, you name it. Frankie is the one most out of her comfort zone but this city girl is determined, focused and absolutely amazing at what she does. When night falls on day 1 someone sabotages the group but who? I was hyperalert all through the novel but I honestly couldn’t say and after a while they all wormed their way into my heart.

I’d love to go over everything they went through up on that mountain but that would mean we’d need another hour. Suffice to say that there is lots of blood and wounds involved and yeah people will also get murdered. It’s like a version of The Hunger Games but better, so much better. The plot was so clever. I also had not a single idea how this was going to end.

I really enjoyed the first novel Before She Disappeared but in all honesty One Step Too Far is even better. If this doesn’t make it on my top 10 end of year list I don’t know what does! This character driven novel has wrung me out emotionally too. I nearly cried once, then smiled when it all came to a close, and in the very last pages I was emotional all over again. I think it’s easier to say it’s hormones then to explain to non-readers.

It can’t get any better than this if you ask me, but I can’t wait to follow Frankie again in the next novel and see what trouble finds her there!

I received a free ecopy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley. This is my honest opinion.

The Heights by Louise Candlish #BookReview #BlogTour @louise_candlish @TeamBATC

He thinks he’s safe up there. But he’ll never be safe from you.

The Heights is a tall, slender apartment building among the warehouses of Tower Bridge, its roof terrace so discreet you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there – a man you’d recognize anywhere. He’s older now and his appearance has subtly changed, but it’s definitely him.

Which makes no sense at all since you know he has been dead for over two years. You know this for a fact.

Because you’re the one who killed him. It’s time to confess what we did up there.

I read a Quick Reads novel (The Skylight) by Louise Candlish a few months back, which I really enjoyed. It was my first read by this author and enough to know I wanted to read more of her books so I was really delighted with the chance to read The Heights.

Under the tutelage of Felix Penney, an esteemed author and one of the most high-profile creative writing tutors in the UK, Ellen Saint is trying to write her memoir, and as I discovered later on, she sure does have something to write about. In between the chapters of her memoir detailing the story of Lucas and Kieran there are also snippets from the Sunday Time Magazine where the reporter seems to follow and comment on Ellen’s progress during the course.

The Heights is a story of family drama and revenge. Ellen Saint is such a sympathetic character and even with her thoughts spiraling out of control over time she never really lost my sympathy. Her son Lucas was appointed as Kieran’s buddy on his first day at his new school and they became best friends. Kieran was a bad influence though and Lucas soon went out at all hours, doing and taking god knows what. Ellen worries non-stop but all she can do is complain to her ex, the boy’s father Vic Gordon, who promises to keep an eye on them. Unfortunately it goes from bad to worse and an accident happens involving the two of them. After that she is hell bent on making Kieran pay. Imagine her surprise when she sees this good-for-nothing boy two years later in a penthouse enjoying a magnificent view over the Tower Bridge. She is truly shocked and we find out all the reasons why that is so.

Ellen’s rage and fears are tangible and leap from the pages and while her actions are eh wild and crazy, I couldn’t stop from being hooked and wondering how she was going to cope now that it didn’t go as planned. In a later part of the novel the story shifts incrementally with Vic’s point of view. His vision adds a different perspective to the story and I saw Ellen with a fresh pair of eyes. Did she overreact? Is Kieran really a devil or not? Did her grief cloud her emotions and her experience of the past, it’s interesting and a challenge to make up your mind about all this while reading. I was on pins and needles at the end when I had a feeling of what was to come but the author kept more than one surprise for the final chapters. It’s well worth the wait!

The Heights is a gripping story that won’t let you go once you start reading. Twisted and compelling!

I chose to read an ARC for the blog tour and this is my honest opinion.

*** Do check the other stops on the tour here ***

Missing Pieces by Tim Weaver #BookReview #BlogTour @MichaelJBooks

You don’t know your darkest secret.
But someone else does . . .

Rebekah Murphy knows too much. . .

She knows she’s alone on an abandoned island with a killer on her trail.
She knows that to get home to her children, she must survive long enough to understand why this is happening.
She knows someone tried to kill her for a secret.
What she doesn’t know is what that secret is . . .

Detective Frank Travis doesn’t know enough . . .

He doesn’t know where to find Louise Mason. He doesn’t know how and why she vanished into thin air three months ago. He doesn’t know the identity of the man last seen talking to her. Not yet.
But what he does know it that he’s a week away from retirement — and if he doesn’t find out where Louise went, no one will.

What neither Rebekah nor Detective Travis realise is that each holds a missing piece from the same puzzle — and it will cost them everything they love to finally solve it . . .

We toss the term addictive around quite easily sometimes but you must take my word for it, Missing Pieces is crazy addictive!

It’s laughable in hindsight but when I had the book in my hands I was a little intimidated by how heavy it was, it counts 500 pages so I was a little scared to start with… but I flew right through them. It was an amazing read, and you know why I read it as fast as I could? Because nearly every chapter ended with a splendid cliffhanger. I swear sometimes I would think about stopping at the end of the chapter but then I would reach the end and I just found I COULD NOT STOP READING. 

It’s as much a survival story as it is a very compelling mystery and while I’m not always so into survival stories because they often show the same precut elements (being chased, struggling with the simplest survival skills etc.), it was a completely different story in Missing Pieces. Rebekah, the main character of the novel, is awesome, she’s very resourceful, she’s got what it takes and she’ll do anything to see her two children again.

The novel opens with Bek alone on the island but then also shifts between the time before she arrived there and detective Travis’s final days before his retirement. There’s one case Travis hasn’t cracked and with the hours ticking away he finds himself pushing himself to try and find some answers. I couldn’t work out at all how Louise Mason could be connected to Rebekah because artsy Louise seemed very far removed from mum-of-two Rebekah and they certainly didn’t seem to know each other.   

While Rebekah wonders why someone tried to kill her she is trying her best to survive in this utterly desolate place called Crow Island. The imaginary of the island itself was vivid and movie-worthy and it wasn’t even her struggle to find food that worried me the most but I was more afraid the lack of interaction with other human beings might prove to be the bigger threat for a deterioration of her state of mind. I rooted so much for her that I felt I couldn’t abandon her sometimes. Does that sound crazy? I know it does but really, I sometimes wanted to continue reading just to see how she would tackle a certain challenge. It’s not that I didn’t have faith in her, I just wanted to see what she would do and how and rather see her do it sooner than later. I did hold my breath at one particular time though when a situation that was built up over the course of the book became so tense and dangerous, it was really a make or break kind of moment and when I thought I could breath out again, I found it wasn’t over at all.

How are the women connected, is Travis going to solve the case, what happened to Johnny, who is after Rebekah, what ‘secret’ does she know, how is this all going to end? The questions just kept on coming and I was strung for answers. I highly anticipating the moment the ‘missing pieces’ of this puzzle would fall into place and the author certainly pulled it all perfectly together in the end. Missing Pieces is an incredible pacy read with a taut and compelling plotline that I hugely enjoyed. 

Where was I all these past years and why hadn’t I read any of his novels? I seriously regret not having read any of this author’s books before… what a big mistake! Missing Pieces is a brilliant standalone novel. Gripping is an understatement for this un-put-down-able mystery!

A big, big thank you to Chrissie Antoniou of Michael Joseph for the free paperback copy of this spell-bounding novel. This is my honest opinion.

* Do check out the other stops on the tour *

 

Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay #BookReview #BlogTour #AlexFinlay @HoZ_Books

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay and a big thank you to Chrissie of Head of Zeus for the invite to read and review this great debut novel!

University student Matt Pine has just received devastating news. Nearly his entire family have been found dead while holidaying in Mexico. The local police claim it was an accident, but the FBI aren’t convinced – and they won’t tell Matt why.

The tragedy thrusts his family into the media spotlight again. Seven years ago, Matt’s older brother, Danny, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his teenage girlfriend. Danny has always sworn he was innocent, and last year, a true crime documentary that claimed he was wrongfully convicted went viral.

Now his family’s murder is overlapping with Danny’s case, Matt is determined to uncover the truth behind the crime that sent his brother to prison. Even if it means putting his own life in danger, and confronting his every last fear.

That opening chapter of Every Last Fear… BAM! I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be so in your face right from the start. The discovery of Matt’s dead family was a little bit shocking, yet intriguing and it certainly made me want to dive right into the story, so as far as first chapters go, I’ve got to give it credit, it’s easily one of the best I have come across in quite some time.

In general terms, I very much enjoyed the writing style of the author as well as the special format of the story building and it didn’t take me long at all to know that this was going to be a novel to devour and that I would need more hours in a day. There are several mysteries up in the air at the same time making Every Last Fear quite a rollercoaster read. The first being of course the murder of the family which had me guessing wildly why anyone would want to murder an entire family (assuming it wasn’t an accident of course but I thought that was a safe bet) but I could not see any reason for a very long time. The other plotline involves the possible false imprisonment of Matt’s other brother Danny. Matt is absolutely sure Danny’s guilty but his father Evan and sister Maggie were never convinced he did it and never stopped trying to prove otherwise. The small matter of fact is that Danny actually confessed, just to make things more complex. What happened 7 years ago isn’t just told in cold hard facts nor in flashbacks like is often the case in these type of novels, no it’s through the family’s investigation as well as parts of a documentary made after Danny’s arrest that an image took shape in my head until the rest was filled in at a much later point in the novel. 

There’s also a detective in the story, Sarah Keller, but – another surprise – she’s not appointed to investigate the family’s deaths (because they were claimed to be an accident) but leading a money-laundering investigation into Marconi LLP, the firm Evan Pine was employed at before he was made redundant. Did that mean we have to search in the direction of corporate fraud or were the answers lying elsewhere? It’s not Keller who leads us single handedly to the truth in this novel but there was a wonderful mix of leads being followed and progress brought on by several of the family’s characters. There were also parts of an interview with Evan Pine interspersed between the chapters which were intriguing to read and I hoped they would help me build a picture of what happened with Danny Pine and possibly hold a clue in them somewhere that could be useful later into the story.  

At around 60-65% I started to have a small inkling about some of the answers but it was really only in the last 10% of the novel that it all started to make a lot more sense. I absolutely loved that the author was able to keep me in suspense for so long, and although I’m still in two minds about whether the (entire) family really had to die and the motive, I enjoyed the outcome very much. 

Finally, a word of appreciation for making me feel the pain of losing this wonderful family. I knew four members of the family were dead right from the start, yet I couldn’t help hoping for another outcome at the end of the novel. They were so alive in all those pages, Maggie a wonderful tenacious investigator and Evan such a wonderful father, it made it all the more tragic.

Every Last Fear is a very commendable debut novel. I love the author’s fresh ideas and I’m sure we’ll be hearing from Alex Finlay in the future!

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher via Netgalley. This is as always my honest opinion.

* Do check out the other stops on the tour here *

Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner #BlogTour #BookReview @arrowpublishing

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner. I don’t do book tours often anymore so you should know it takes a special kind of book or author to make me sign up and I didn’t have to think long at all to say ‘yes please’ to read and review this one. Take a look at this great blurb and tell me you’re not intrigued a little yourself:

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman with more regrets than belongings who spends her life doing what no one else will: searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.

A new case brings Frankie to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier.

Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own. And she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered.

But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing will be her …

The author found inspiration for this novel when she stumbled upon some forums where ordinary people are united and are willingly giving up a lot of their free time trying to crack cold cases. There are more people who are active and invested in the many unsolved cases than you might think. She embodies these people in Frankie Elkin, a woman with a mission. Frankie has been travelling all over the country for over 10 years, her only ambition finding missing persons, to give families an answer to that burning question where their loved one is. So far none of them was found alive but she keeps this not unimportant fact from the families. Her motivation for being such a loner, bringing only a rucksack and travelling with the same old sparse set of clothes remains unclear until the end but it is obvious what motivates her is linked to a person of her past, a man named Paul who is absent from her life now but who she still appears to love dearly.

Frankie Elkin is a flawed and troubled soul but one that I could fully get behind. She has more than one demon and aside from the one she’s hiding, she’s quite open and upfront about her battle with alcohol. She goes to AA meetings wherever she is staying and even after 9 years of staying sober she can’t say she has slayed this dragon completely. I loved that she wasn’t perfect and it made her even more sympathetic in my eyes.

So one case finished Frankie scours the net and travels to the multi-cultural city of Mattapan, Boston to find 15-year old Angelique (Angel for her friends) Badeau. While risking her own life not only in certain areas of the city where it is unwise to walk around as a white person let alone a single white female, but also by getting out of bed in the morning and meeting the wreath of a maniacal cat called Piper who she shares her room with, Frankie is not intimidated by either one. She roams the city asking questions, going properly old-skool with her investigation, and while she didn’t receive a warm welcome at first, she does gain trust here and there and with detective Lotham finally aboard the investigation is re-energized although there are only more questions rising after her first significant discovery of a puzzling clue. What was Angelique getting into, the case gets weirder by the minute and Frankie is not out of harm’s way herself. The author kept me well in the dark about what was going on and while my mind was going in overdrive I did love every minute of it. It was great discovering how she was able to disappear with so much CCTV all around, but finding out the reason why she disappeared was even better and also different from any missing persons novel I have read so far.

I totally understand why readers would love to see Frankie Elkin (and the pub’s loveable landlord Stoney, Piper and detective Lotham) again in a series but since I’m rubbish at following series I’m quite happy this was a standalone. I read two, three of Lisa Gardner’s novels before (which can be read as standalones too) and I’m also a big fan of detective D.D. Warren so it was never even a question whether I was going to like Before She Disappeared. This author never fails to deliver and I’d really love to read more stories as intriguing as this one!

I received a free paperback copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

A Million Dreams by Dani Atkins #BookReview #Blogtour @AtkinsDani @HoZ_Books

Beth Brandon always dreamed of owning a florist, but today the bouquets of peonies and bright spring flowers are failing to calm her nerves. Because today, Beth has a life-changing decision to share with her husband.

Izzy Vaughan thought she and her husband would stay together forever, but sometime last year, their love began to fade. They both find such joy in their young son Noah – but is he enough to keep them together?

Eight years ago, something happened to these two women. Something that is about to bring them together in a way no-one thought possible…

 

Kobo | iBooks | Google Play

Dani Atkins is an award-winning novelist. Her 2013 debut FRACTURED (published as THEN AND ALWAYS in North America) has been translated into sixteen languages and has sold more than half a million copies since first publication in the UK. Dani is the author of four other bestselling novels, one of which, This Love, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2018. Dani lives in a small village in Hertfordshire with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.

Twitter | Facebook

Can I give more than 5 stars? A Million Dreams shot daggers through my heart. If you want to read a novel with heart and emotion you need to read this! I was completely lost in this novel again, just like it happened when I read This Love.

I loved that novel so I didn’t have to think twice when I saw the title of this new book and that there was a book tour being organised for it. So yes I was expecting to love it but I loved it even more than I thought, which is especially impressive given the baseline of this novel.

Now, I don’t know if anyone’s noticed it yet, but I usually stay away from novels that deal with that unfulfilled dream of having a child. I always fear that I won’t be able to experience it and feel it as deeply as someone who already has or wants to have children. Well, if there’s someone who has no problems squeezing my heart, then it’s certainly Dani Atkins.

Two women are prepared to fight for what they wanted most in life, except that it was the same dream they had. Oh the dilemma, it was excrutiating to follow and to decide on my own whose side I was on before the story told me the outcome. Alternating chapters following Beth and Izzy show their side of the story and of course the most unwelcome thing happened (winkwink), I liked both women immediately. After a while they were on opposite sides and I didn’t know who to cheer on. They were both right! How were they going to get out of this? How was this going to be solved? I actually know a real true story of a similar situation so I knew what the outcome was there and I did wonder if this would have the same one, but I had no idea how it was going to play out. Well I did say it’s an emotional story, right? It’s a story about a mother’s love that is sooo deep.

You really shouldn’t be allowed to read this novel outside of your home. A Million Dreams got me choked up as much in the beginning of the novel as at the end, and everything in between was a rollercoaster of happy, sad, hopeful, and every other feeling of the rainbow.

Enough said I think… I’m calling this one out as another winner by Dani Atkins!

I received an ecopy of this novel from the publisher, Head of Zeus, via Netgalley. This is my honest opinion.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

*** Follow the rest of the book tour here ⬇️ ***

The Postcard Murder by Paul Worsley QC #BlogTour @midaspr #PaulWorsley #ThePostcardMurder

Welcome to my stop for The Postcard Murder – A Judge’s Tale by Paul Worsley QC and thanks so much to MidasPR for the invitation to join this blog tour! I have an extract to share with you today but first check out how great this novel sounds.

It may be of some satisfaction to you, Gentlemen of the Jury, to know that you have been engaged in one of the most remarkable trials that is to be found in the annals of the Criminal Courts of England. Mr Justice Grantham, Judge at the Old Bailey

This is a vintage whodunit set in Edwardian London at a crossroads in time, as social revolution and psychiatry posed new questions for the Law and for the first time the Media were co-opted to run a killer to ground.

The year is 1907: 22-year-old Emily Dimmock lies murdered in her Camden Town flat, her head all but severed from her body. With not a thread or stain or fingerprint to point to the perpetrator, a young artist is manouevred into the shadow of the scaffold.

The tale is told verbatim by witnesses presided over by the author, who draws on his own experience as a Judge at the Old Bailey to get inside the mind of the outspoken but irresolute Mr Justice Grantham. The result is as compelling today as it is definitive of the era in which the murder was committed.

 

Paul Worsley was for ten years a judge at the Old Bailey, where the Postcard Murder was tried. He now lives in rural North Yorkshire, where as a practising QC most of his murder cases took place. The Postcard Murder is the first in a series of books in which he gets into the mind of the trial judge in order to lay bare Justice as it was understood and dispensed in the manner of the day.

 

*** Follow the rest of the tour here ***

Daddy’s Girls by Sarah Flint #BlogTour #Extract @SarahFlint19 @aria_fiction

Welcome to my stop for Daddy’s Girls by Sarah Flint. Thanks so much to Aria Fiction for the invitation to join this blog tour! I have an extract to share with you today but first check out how wonderful this novel sounds.

He wasn’t always a killer. At first, he just wanted to talk.

D.C. Charlie Stafford has an odd case on her hands. And it may be her toughest one yet.

A burglar who isn’t interested in valuables, the subject of Operation Greystream is a strange but smooth operator. In the dead of the night, gloved and masked, he visits the elderly. He doesn’t hurt them and, if they beg, he won’t take anything of real value. All he wants is conversation… and they’re powerless to refuse him.

But then 87-year-old Florence Briarly is found by her friend, cold to the touch and neatly, too neatly, tucked into bed. And Charlie realises this case has taken a sinister, urgent turn. Now this stealthy burglar has had a taste of murder, it’s only a matter of time until he craves it again…

Amazon | Kobo | GooglePlay | iBooks

With a Metropolitan Police career spanning 35 years Sarah has spent her adulthood surrounded by victims, criminals and police officers. She continues to work and lives in London with her partner and has three older daughters.

Facebook | Twitter

It was dark when the man returned.

The man liked darkness. He liked the anonymity it provided. He had worked in darkness many times in the early years of his career and was at home in its obscurity. On one occasion, many years before, he had heard a politician being described on the TV as ‘having something of the night’ about him and the phrase had stuck in his head. It fitted him. It was him. There had always been something dark inside him that he had never been able to truly control. At times it had emerged, unbidden, but he had never been able to allow it free rein… until more recently.

He slipped into the bushes, retracing his previous route along the footpaths of the common until he came to a small, cramped spot of flattened foliage, right opposite the old woman’s house. It was perfect. In fact, the whole area was perfect. Streatham Common was a well-known location for the anonymous liaisons of gay men, so it was criss-crossed by walkways, some wide, some only lightly trodden, with small, circular patches where the shrubs had been compressed flat by the weekends’ illicit activities. Tonight, however, being a Monday, the common was quiet, as were the residential streets that bordered it, few cars other than those belonging to residents requiring access.

With gloved hands, the man carefully unfolded a square of waterproof sheeting, spread it out on top of the trodden leaves and crouched down on it, watching and listening at all times – but nothing stirred. Idly, he ran his fingers through his rucksack, double-checking that all his tools were in their correct places, cleaned and sharpened, ready to cut wires, score through putty, slip locks; if necessary keep control. He couldn’t risk making any mistakes. He was too good for that.

The old woman’s details were already seared into his memory. She was called Florence Briarly; he’d seen it on discarded correspondence. She was eighty-two years of age, subscribed to several charities and on the whole wasn’t taken in by junk mail, most being thrown away unopened. He knew all of this because he’d been there before, during daylight hours, as well as under cover of darkness, scoping out her house, checking the bins and memorising her night-time rituals.

She was a typical pensioner: she entertained only a handful of daytime visitors and spent evenings alone with just her TV for company. She got up at the same time every morning and she went to bed at the same time every night. She tended to shop and complete her chores in the mornings, took a short nap after lunch and entertained most visitors in the afternoon, before having tea at around 6 p.m. She chose not to drive, so if not being picked up would usually catch a bus. She did not appear to have a mobile phone and had little use for technology. A landline and TV were clearly all she needed, and that was all she had.

He allowed himself a smile of anticipation. She was perfect for what he wanted – and what he really wanted was conversation, a chance to get to know the real Florence Briarly. He loved the elderly. They held memories he loved to hear.

A light still shone from the downstairs window but soon it would begin its movement upwards, the meagre glow lighting her way up the stairs, onto the landing and into her bedroom. Old people were slaves to routine and Florence Briarly was no exception.

He checked his watch and made himself more comfortable, lying on the waterproof sheet and pulling the hood of his jacket tighter around his head, leaving only a small hole through which to peer. Even though the sun had been warm, now it was night, the chill dampness of the woodland seeped into his bones – but he didn’t care. He had spent many an hour rooted unmoving to a single spot in his youth. Doing so again only served to heighten the experience.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

*** Follow the rest of the tour here ***

The Bad Place by M.K. Hill #BlogTour #Extract #Giveaway @markhillwriter @HoZ_Books

Hi booklovers! Welcome to my stop for Bad Place by M.K. Hill. Thanks so much to Vicky of Head of Zeus for the invitation to join this blog tour! Scroll down for book + author info, an exclusive excerpt and the chance to win a ecopy of this book for yourselves!

The newspapers called it The Bad Place. A remote farm out on the Thames estuary, where six children were held captive for two weeks. Five of them got out alive.

That was twenty years ago. Now adults, they meet up annually to hold a candlelit vigil for their friend who died. The only rule is that no-one can talk about what happened the night they escaped. But at this year’s event, one of them witnesses a kidnapping. A young girl, Sammi, is bundled into a van in front of their eyes.

Is history repeating itself? Is one of them responsible? Or is someone sending them a twisted message?

DI Sasha Dawson, of Essex Police, is certain that the key to finding Sammi lies in finding out the truth about The Bad Place. But she also knows that with every second she spends trying to unlock the past, the clock ticks down for the missing girl…

Amazon | Kobo | iBooks | GooglePlay

I’ve been a journalist and an award-winning music radio producer. I worked for about five minutes in PR. But I write the Drake and Crowley thriller series now, which is just as well, because I love writing. It’s my dream job.

If you enjoyed His First Lie or It Was Her, do get in touch. There are plenty of ways to do it!

Facebook |Twitter|Instagram

The bell rang – ‘All change!’ – and Ajay stood. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Have a nice evening.’

When he walked to the next table, she picked up the pencil to give him a score, but thought better of it.

Then the man in the Hawaiian shirt dropped into the chair, swinging one tattooed arm over the back, opening his legs wide – manspreading, she believed was the term – and favouring Sasha with an excellent view of his groin. Middle-aged, thickset, hair slicked back by lots of product.

‘Now you look interesting.’ Sasha leaned forward. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Darren.’ The man’s legs opened and closed like a pair of elevator doors. ‘Call me         Daz.’

‘Hello, Daz, I’m Sasha. Tell me about yourself.’

He grinned. ‘I’d rather we talked about us.’

Sasha gasped. It was an audacious start.

‘I’ll be honest with you, Sasha.’ His knees snapped together so that he could swing closer to the table. ‘You’re not my usual type, you’re probably a decade older than I’m used to.’

Sasha smiled sadly. ‘Devastated.’

‘But when I saw you earlier, I knew immediately, I said to myself, Daz, there’s something about that woman. She’s got a…’ He wiggled fingers heavy with jewellery in front of his face, trying to conjure the exact word. ‘A twinkle.’

Sasha listened gravely. ‘Do I really?’

‘You got a way about you. A mystery. Despite the…’ He grimaced at her unexpected shock of long white hair.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘Wanna know what I’m thinking?’ Darren gestured around the pub. ‘This whole event is a big fat waste of time. It’s a charade.’
Sasha blinked. ‘Is it?’

He jerked his head, come closer, and Sasha leaned in. Darren picked up the sheet of paper and tossed it over his shoulder.

‘You don’t need to mark a stupid scorecard, because our attraction is obvious. We’re like the two ends of a magnet, me and you, compelled to attract. I see the desire in your eyes.’ His hands framed her face in the air. ‘Your beautiful eyes, which are like two hazel windows to your soul.’

‘Oh, Daz.’ Sasha swallowed. ‘And what do you see in my windows?’

‘I see a sensitive, sophisticated woman with womanly needs and appetites. You’ve got a thing for me.’ His eyes fastened on hers, his tongue slid slowly along the length of his top teeth. ‘And, no bullshit, I’ve a serious thing for you. So let’s get out of here, go somewhere more… intimate.’

‘I’d love to talk to you more. I know just the place we can go.’

Darren gave a satisfied grunt. ‘Now we’re talking.’ His hand crept across the table, but she coyly moved hers into her lap.

‘Let’s go to the station,’ she said.

‘The Station.’ Darren narrowed his eyes. ‘That a trendy new bar, is it?’

‘Oh, Daz, you’ve been to the police station many times.’ The bell dinged and Sasha made a sad face. ‘Time’s up, I’m afraid.’

If you want to read this novel, here’s your chance! I’m going to make it really easy this time, all you have to do is comment below that you want to win an ecopy of this novel (if you read the reviews of Shalini and Grace J Reviewerlady already you’ll know that they rate this one highly).

I will give each entry a consecutive number and will use a number generator to pick one lucky winner!

This giveaway is open for everyone and will close next Monday, which gives you plenty of time to enter :-). I’ll contact and announce the winner on Tuesday :-).

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

 

*** Check out the rest of the blog tour here ***